


Belize was First, but Budapest was Better

by bellinibeignet



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Another Fic about Budapest, Budapest, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-10
Updated: 2012-07-10
Packaged: 2017-11-09 13:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/456125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellinibeignet/pseuds/bellinibeignet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Clint hits his head, Natasha’s legs are weapons of mass distraction, and Tony Stark is just so fucking cool. </p><p>(What is there to say? It’s another story about what happened in Budapest.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belize was First, but Budapest was Better

**Author's Note:**

> There was one line that was stuck in my head, a line that I could hear Clint (and especially Jeremy) saying, and I'm sure you can figure out which one it is. Just... some sexy fun.

CLINT’s mouth landed on the question rather easily. It had grown heavy on his tongue for a long time, making him ache, making him almost feel sleazy for thinking it. Almost. Especially now. Because, God, it was a good question. It was a question he’d thought of asking her several times in the last couple of years, the years since that one drunken night on the other side of the world. How was he supposed to bite the question back? - with her bare leg in his hand, and the heat of the fireplace forming sweat on her brow.

Wait.

He hadn’t expected it to be like this; Budapest was meant to be relatively easy. Natasha was coming to the end of working undercover, and he was only there to be the guard dog, perched at a distance for just-in-case purposes. It was supposed to be easy. They were supposed to leave without a single scratch between them.

Of course, things that were meant to be easy rarely were.

Back up.

Some of the memories of Budapest were crystal clear: the nights of research in their cruddy motel room a town over (just to be safe), the cold fucking weather, sharp and unpleasant (even for an Iowa boy and Russian gal), days of irritability and sitting through Natasha’s translation of Hungarian news, and stupid fucking calls from Fury and Coulson, telling them things they already fucking knew.

(He was more irritated about the last fact because it made Natasha seem incompetent, having them check in so often and so heavily. She knew the case backwards and forwards, and was the one putting her life at risk. They were causing her unnecessary stress, making her second guess herself. And he was the one that had to live with her being broody and quiet.)

He remembered sitting in the rafters of the abandoned building, careful not to creak, listening as Natalia Romanova spoke in her slick Russian tongue, blonde extensions sitting uncharacteristically atop her head, tied in a bun. For a moment, a slight moment, he remembered that morning, watching her prep herself almost narcissistically in a broken compact mirror. He remembered that, as she rubbed the excess red lipstick from the corners of her posh lips, she stiffened a bit, noticing him looking at her, and turned forward again.

Maybe he was bound to end up with her legs in his hands and her cunt begging for him.

Work.

His focus was split between the three men in cheap suits and Natasha. Because Natasha was his investment in this whole mission, the only reason he was here. He watched her posture, her tells, listened to the steadiness of her voice. If anyone moved too quickly, he’d be ready, bow around his body and pistol in his hand.

It was supposed to be easy.

She suddenly pulled a gun and outted the man in front of her as he tried to grasp at her, speaking mangled Russian in his Italian accent. There was too much language that Clint didn’t readily know, but the emergence of Black Widow told him the man had pushed too far. Even with her thick skin, even with her walls and training, he’d said too fucking much.

Clint pulled off two bullets from his pistol, sinking the other men to the ground, then used a bungee arrow to bring himself down from the rafters. He landed perfectly in front of his partner, and instantly put his hand on her arm. “What’d he say?”

She spat in Russian. “Nichego.” _Nothing._

He accepted that answer and went to the bodies, noticing that one of the underlings was still managing short breaths from a bullet-pierced lung. Clint lifted a booted foot and pressed it into the man’s stomach, making him sputter blood. “Die already,” Clint demanded.

“Tu prima,” he uttered. “Bastardo.”

Clint understood quickly enough, hearing the rustling of feet on the floor below them. Natasha did too, and she pulled him towards a metal table, knocking it over and kneeling behind it.

She pulled a second gun from the holster of her right thigh. How many weapons she could hide on her person, especially in the dress she was wearing, so short and hugging, he would never figure out.

He watched her as she listened carefully, counting the silent sounds that Clint had to strain to hear; a spy’s training only went so far. She was the natural, the master between them. He wouldn’t deny that for a second.

“Eight. Men. Two huge.”

Clint had only counted five. That was why she was here. One of the reasons, anyway.

“Seems… fun,” Clint half chuckled just as the sound of gunshots started to pierce the room.

Clint only managed to relieve two of the men of their lives before the familiar pierce of a bullet wedged into his hip. He grunted, and he would’ve been fine to fight through such a trivial ache, but he fell, losing himself, and the last memory of that moment was the sight of a metal table leg, ready to accept his head in a blackened greeting.

 

NATASHA saw him fall in her peripheral sight, and goddamn, she wanted to look his way, but first thing was first. She focused forward, shooting, shooting as she knew best: quickly and resourceful. “Wake up, Barton!” she yelled out as she dropped behind the table to reload a magazine, then popped back up to finish off the last of Maccillo’s men.

With eleven men dead, or fairly close to death (far more death than she’d planned to hand out this morning), she got down on her hands and knees, next to her partner, who had been knocked cold, nowhere near waking.

She cursed, putting every weapon in its rightful holster, then looked over him carefully, afraid of moving him. She had no choice, sure that Maccillo would’ve expected word if the handoff with the Russian slut had gone wrong. Five minutes tops. Five minutes to get Clint down rickety and wooden stairs, out of the door, and then… well, somewhere. Somewhere safe.

Parts of this sounded easy enough. On a street of mostly abandoned homes, there were plenty of nooks and corners to hide in. But Clint was heavy. Even with her strength, it would be a task to prop him and get him down the street.

It was also a Hungarian winter - too cold to sit in an abandoned building with Clint bleeding out, unconscious. Too dangerous to leave him.

One step at a time.

Natasha ground out thoughts to herself as she pulled Clint into her chest, arms hooked under the pits of his, his bow hooked around her lithe body. She was too deep undercover to have worn any sort of wire, and she didn’t want to speak with Fury anyway. She knew what he’d tell her. She knew what the argument would be about. He’d tell her that they’d really fucked up this time. To leave Barton and get to safety. That they would come to get him.

That wasn’t enough. That wasn’t going to cut it.

She had to do this on her own.

Three slummed houses away, with Clint’s arm over her shoulder, she got him out of the cold streets and into an old kitchen. The place had long been abandoned, the roof caved in and snow on the floor and _fuck_ central Europe and its goddamn winter. And _fuck_ this femme fatale _bullshit_ , with its tight leather dresses and fishnet stockings in seventeen-degree weather.

Finally, after making sure they hadn’t been followed from the living room window, she knelt next to her partner, wiping at the half-frozen blood dripping from his brow, then at the growing dark spot of red from his gunshot wound.

She wasn’t dumb enough to ask him to wake up, even if the words were swishing around in her mouth; he wasn’t waking up anytime soon.

Instead, she slipped the disposable cell phone from the pocket of his snug business pants, because he didn’t like wearing his S.H.I.E.L.D. suit when Natasha wasn’t. When she had to go out in public, he wanted to blend into the crowd so that he could follow, stay close without drawing attention, so he could easily save her when she needed it. Which rarely ever happened.

She realized then that her hands were unsteady. Fuck. Fuck the Italians and their disgusting ways of detailing their torture, and fuck the nightmarish fire in his eyes when that fat fucker looked at her the wrong way.

She slipped. Everybody slipped once in a while, and she hated when she was included in that statistic.

She blamed it on the cold, and dialed the number she didn’t realize she had memorized.

“Uh, sort of busy, Miss Romanoff,” the raspy and coy voice called into her ear. The distant sound of gunshots rang out. From his end.

“Targets two and four eliminated, Mr. Stark,” came a royal voice between them. JARVIS.

“Stark,” Natasha bit. “I need your help.” She removed the scarf from her neck and tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear. She pressed the scarf to Clint’s wound, and his body coiled just a bit. That meant he had no critical nerve damage. That was a good sign. She sighed a breath of relief.

“I assumed.”

“My partner. He’s-“

More firing of weapons. “Uh, give me something like a half hour. I’m almost finished here,” Tony said between gunshots and Jarivs announcing another deferred target, as well as Miss Romanoff’s current coordinates on the edge of Budapest.

Tony, quiet as kept, was a fucking savior, it seemed. Thirty-two minutes, and he managed to come crashing down through the deteriorating roof, a saint in red and gold.

And thank goodness, because Natasha didn’t think the pressure of her scarf,  or covering Clint’s shivering body with her jacket was doing much at all. He was shivering, his lips turning blue, and her own body had lost most feeling, even if she was rubbing her hands on his arms and holding him close. Heat just wouldn’t come, and, for a moment, she thought of death, of dying right there with him.

“Boyfriend?” Tony asked, stepping out of the suit with ease, watching it collapse into a suitcase. He kneeled next to Natasha, who was holding Clint’s head in her lap.

“Clint Barton. You’ll meet him soon enough.”

“Hawkeye,” Tony said to himself, and Natasha almost smiled that he was studying the profiles of those he wouldn’t be working with in the Avenger’s Initiative. Almost. She’d be damned if Clint died in her arms from a head injury and a shot to the hip.

Tony pulled out a cellphone, and pointed it over Clint’s body like a security paddle searching for metal. Immediately, his A.I. spoke. “Mr. Clinton Francis Barton. Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Thirty-one years of age. Six-three, two-hundred and thirty-two and one-fourth pounds. Blood type: B+. Heart-rate is critical, at a current low of thirty-six. Fever is threatening to set in, and brain function is undetermined. He appears to have lost a lot of blood and needs a doctor as soon as possible. Should I call-?”

“Yes,” Tony said.

“No,” Natasha spat shakily.

“Not S.H.I.E.L.D. Not an ambulance. Just a friend.”

Natasha thought for a moment that Tony Stark might have made a great spy if he wasn’t so… Tony Stark.

In no time, a man pulled up in an unmarked car, and they drove into a quiet and ritzy part of Budapest, with ivory and peach colored townhouses and large front doors. Inside, all of her and Clint’s things were sitting next to the keytable: two suitcases, their weapons, computers, files, everything. If the situation wasn’t dire, she would’ve asked how the _fuck_ he’d managed that.

Tony did the duty of carrying Clint upstairs, and the friend did the duty of checking over his vitals, asking Natasha a series of questions as he slipped away her partner’s clothes.

No, he wasn’t allergic to anything. No, he hadn’t said a word since he hit his head. On a steel table. Not even her name.

Soon, he lay resting on the couch, dressed in only a pair of boxers. His hip was stitched and patched, antibiotic rushing through his body to fight infection. Natasha had watched from her corner, eyes glancing between her heavily breathing partner, the steady hands of the doctor checking over him, and the streets outside of the small window, however unthreatening they seemed on this part of town.

She didn’t realize that Tony had been out of the room for nearly a half an hour, and he wasn’t surprised to find that she hadn’t moved from her corner, hadn’t bothered to clean herself of the blood on her hands. If he hadn’t swept a blanket over her body the moment they’d gotten inside, she would’ve frozen in her tiny dress.

“Nobody will get you here,” Tony said, entering her space. He pulled at a strand of her blonde wig, a look of disapproval in his blue eyes. “What the fuck does Fury have you doing?”

“Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for calling.”

“Where were you? How’d you get our bags?”

“Doesn’t matter. You okay?”

“Of course.”

The friend who Tony hadn’t introduced came up to them. “He’s lapsed into a fever,” the skinny brown man said warily. “No sign of pneumonia or infection, but he seems to have hit his head pretty hard, and he lost a lot of blood. I’ve given him a sedative that will keep him out for the count for a couple of days. I’ve left you plenty of antibiotics. I assume you know how to tend to-“

“Yes,” both Tony and Natasha replied quickly, almost dismissively.

The man nodded, understanding that his duty was finished. “I also left a milder sedative for you, Miss.” He seemed to think about putting a comforting hand on her, but decided to tug gently at the blanket she was wrapped in. “Are you sure you don’t want me to-”

“I’ll be fine,” she assured him, even if she couldn’t stop her mind from spinning and her blood was only about half as warm as she wanted it to be. Clint was breathing steadily, and that was her primary focus.

The doctor left them.

“He’ll be fine,” Tony said into the quiet, staying at the window as Natasha toed over to her partner, dropping down to eye-level. “You should’ve gotten yourself checked out. You look a mess.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He came up to her, and, unlike the doctor, didn’t think twice about placing a hand on her shoulder, even knowing that she knew dozens of ways to kill him without spilling blood. “When he wakes up, try not to kill him for worrying you,” he said easily.

When she said nothing, he started to leave, but turned on his expensive heel before reaching the door. “Take a break, Miss Romanoff. Your age is beginning to show.”

“Kindly fuck yourself, Mr. Stark.”

He grinned, and it felt warm from across the room, even if Natasha wasn’t sure she liked him at all. “There’s a drawer in the nightstand of the master bedroom. There’s a credit card and extra cash.” He eyed Natasha as she stood from her crouched position. “Enjoy yourselves once he wakes up.”

“Tony-“

“That’s not a request. I’ll have JARVIS re-enforce the security while you’re here. Just to be on the safe side.”

They stood looking at one another in silence, until Natasha gave a curt nod, an unsaid thank you, and Tony left.

Yes, she thought to herself, eyes falling over Clint again. Tony would’ve made a great spy.

 

CLINT remembered seeing a flash of white, white like a flash bomb, except it didn’t paralyze him, didn’t needle him with the pain he imagined of death. He felt his limbs vibrating, and his inner ear ringing out - all signals of life. Life he was glad to have managed holding onto.

He saw white. Then darkness. And then… red. A familiar head of red curls. And the scent of honey. The honey of her shampoo. So familiar. Like her lips, red and posh. And then he saw her hips, and felt her thighs.

Wait.

Now memory was blending with reality, and he was thinking of how she’d invited him in once before, years ago. He’d managed to think of it now, with his fingertips numb and his body sweating at every inch. He rarely allowed himself the pleasure, letting in the image of her wall mangled beneath him, shattered for a night, her body shivering with panicky breaths and unsteady hands and clenching muscles around him like a vice...

Back up.

Refocus.

He saw her out of his blurry peripheral vision, standing there, facing away, her red hair tied lazily at the nape of her neck, strands loose and wild and wavy. Could smell the honey of her shampoo. A familiar smell. He wasn’t sure if it was from memory, or if it was truly that strong from across the room, but it was there. He usually had to stand close to her just to get a whiff, or wait for the occasional whip of hair when they were training together.

He began a systems check, and quickly realized that his senses were in overdrive, because he was fucking hot. Sweat was building at every crevice and cranny. If he could move, which he wasn’t sure if he could just yet, he knew the air would be heavy with the heat. The smell of himself, of her, of blood, of a foreign home, all thick and swimming in the air around him, was enough to make him wretch.

He tried to turn his head, to look at her, but it strained him.

He groaned, but didn’t mean to. Privately, he wished he could lay there and watch her a second longer. These were the times that he suspected existed, times where she knew nobody was looking, and simplicity showed in her eyes, comfort and warmth and wonder. She didn’t look sexy, or, well, of course she did. He meant that she didn’t look like the Black Widow or the undercover platinum blonde he’d been working with lately. It was Tasha standing there at the French doors, looking out over the city.

City.

He couldn’t remember which city. What was the last job? What city? How had he ended up on his back, staring at her, hungry as all hell?

He clamped his eyes shut, trying to remember, then opened them again to see that she’d turned to stare at him. Surely, his groan has alerted her, and she had been staring at him the whole time, holding her breath.

He imagined that she’d turned at every sound he’d made in his sleep. For however long he’d been out. That he’d groaned a dozen times, or moved, or spoke, and she waited desperately for him to come to, and she’d been disappointed. Yes. He faintly remembered visions of her huddled over him, hearing her saying his name, him trying to fight to stay awake, but succumbing to the heavy pounding in his head and the weight in his chest.

 For that, he immediately felt horrible, and he opened his eyes wide.

 She came to him, almost anxiously, dropping to her knees. “Don’t move.”

He moved anyway, trying to sit up. “Where am I? What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, and he saw now that her lips were naked of its red shade. His eyes flicked up her face; her eyes told him that she realized his observation, and she almost smiled. “You had quite a fall,” she said instead.

“Maccillo’s men-“

“I took them all down,” she said nonchalantly. “Is your head okay?”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Two days. Is your head okay?”

“Where are we?”

“Still in Budapest. I had no choice. I had to… drag you into the nearest building. Is your head feeling okay?” She started to lift a hand to his forehead to check his temperature, despite the thermometer lying on a small table behind her.

He swatted her away. “Goddammit, Romanova. I’m fine.” He chuckled gently when her jawline went stoic, as if he’d attempted to burn her. “I’m fine.”

She pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and bit.

With her help, he sat up straight. He was on a couch, and it was damp with sweat, and he felt disgusting. “It’s fuckin’ hot in here.”

“I have the heaters all turned up.”

“Whose place is this?” They were in an office, everything made from a rich mahogany, the tapestry over the windows expensive and red.

“I dragged you into an abandoned building. We stayed there for nearly a half hour, and you caught a cold. I’ve been… trying to sweat your fever out with the heaters.”

She hadn’t answered the question. Conversations always seemed to go like this with Natasha: out of order, paced for her benefit, full of non-sequiturs. She was gauging his alertness, his brain activity. “How’d we get out?” he asked.

“Tony flew in and helped me. This is his place.”

“Tony.” Stark.

“Yes. He had a friend check you out. Said you should be fine. We are staying here for a while.”

“Has anyone-“

“Security is tight. If anyone is trying to get to us, we’ll know.”

Clint rubbed at the back of his head. The shattered glass of the last couple of days was working to get pieced back together. He had a faint recollection of coming in and out of awareness, of being carried, of two raspy voices in quiet discussion.

“This is his house,” Natasha said, sitting next to him. “A vacation home or something. Told us we could lay low here. And told me not to kill you if you woke up.”

He was caught between laughing and openly staring at the blush in her cheeks. She rose and walked to the breakfast nook, where an ice bucket and cloth were sitting; he couldn’t help but imagine her rubbing him down, trying to cool him and sweat his fever out at the same time. God. He was confused.

He realized then that she was dressed down to a thin camisole and short cotton shorts. Her blade and holster were high on her left thigh; she looked like a collegiate assassin, soft and touchable and dangerous, toeing easily across the wooden floor, as if it were set with landmines.

And she was sweating, small stains of perspiration beneath her arms and at the small of her back. Multiple locks of hair were drenched in sweat and clinging to the skin of her neck and forehead. She was suffering the heat for him, but Christ, her legs…

“You can turn the heat down before you give yourself a stroke,” Clint managed, trying to look at her eyes when she turned around, but he wanted to lie back down. He longed for darkness again.

“Clint? You look dizzy.”

“I’m fine just-“

She pushed him back into a lying position. “You shouldn’t be sitting up just yet.”

“Turn down…down…”

 

NATASHA watched his eyes flutter as he fell back into his coma, arms folded across her chest, amused. This was the first time he’d been fully awake, strong enough to sit up, in the entire two days. It set her soul at ease. She couldn’t take many more groans in his sleep, soft whimpers that sounded a lot like her name.

She turned down the heat, grateful for his request, because it was fucking hot, then sat at the small breakfast nook, grabbing the satellite phone from where it lay lazily in the fruit basket.

“Stark and friends,” was the answer. No excess background sound.

“I think he’s going to be okay.”

“Good, good,” he said. “You okay?”

Natasha shot her eyes to Clint, who was resting again, peacefully, but for the first time, he looked like he could spring back to life at any moment, eyes fluttering behind his eyelids, indicating a dream. “Yes. Now I’m okay.”

“I’m happy to hear it. Now, I know you haven’t eaten because that would require leaving Clint’s side-“

“Tony.”

“-so I have a friend bringing by some groceries within the hour. I assume that you can cook on your own.”

“Stark, you-“

“I’m just paying my dues. Good karma and such. Anything else you need, call.”

Natasha fought to tell him he was doing too much, but she was exhausted. She was tired. And the surprise of Tony Stark showing his beautiful and sacrificial colors had put her at ease. “Thank you,” she said.

“Yep.”

 

CLINT could nearly get used to it: waking up to the smell of Natasha cooking, the whistle of snow outside, the lack of obligations. What he didn’t like was being cucked in the house, a house that wasn’t his (however nice it was, with the intricate crown moldings and hardwood floors and vases on small useless tables in the hallways), and sniffling away the last of a cold. He didn’t like the feeling of medicine coursing through his blood, or the lack of coffee because Natasha was a Nazi nurse, or losing endless games of Scrabble.

Why were they here? Four days since the mission, and neither had mentioned anything about calling Fury, or discussed whatever the man had said to startle Natasha into killing him, or why Tony was being nice to them. Why had they locked themselves up this way?

Because they so desperately needed it. When was the last time they’d rested? More specifically, when was the last time Natasha had rested, walking around in pajamas without a file to study?

Yes. Too long.

“Stark left us money to enjoy ourselves,” Clint said on the fifth morning, walking into the kitchen where she was already sitting awake, eating grapefruit and scrolling through the news on the holographic screen she wouldn’t admit she’d become addicted to since her work under Tony Stark’s roof.  “Why aren’t we doing that again?”

Natasha scoffed, looking over her shoulder as he dug into the fridge for milk. “Sorry I’m not entertaining you.”

He grunted and found cereal, something sugary and unfamiliar, the label written in Hungarian. Still, he poured a bowl in silence and sat across from her.

“We’ll go into the city and pretend to be tourists,” she said finally, almost boredly.

“We _would_ be tourists.”

“We’re spies.”

“Can you not be both at the same time?”

She huffed. “Barton.”

 

BUDAPEST was a lovely place, even in the snow and cold. It didn’t seem to stop many of the tourists either, the ones with oddly timed vacations. There were mostly couples, and that allowed them to blend rather easily, Natasha’s arm hooked into Clint’s.

With careful consideration, Clint was wearing his long black peacoat, the collar turned up to his ears. The people who were after Natasha had no clue what he looked like, which didn’t lower her paranoia any considerable amount. Clint insisted that she wore her red hair, as they’d be expecting blonde, and threw her a cotton floppy hat from her bag when she didn’t like that idea.

“Suck it up,” he’d said; she didn’t like hats.

They enjoyed coffee and sight-seeing, which was… almost odd, walking around like that, laughing, trying so hard to pretend that they were a normal pair of people enjoying one another’s company that it… was almost true.

Almost.

The sun fell out of the winter sky after only a few hours, and the city turned its lights on, setting the streets and snow into a happy glistening place that made Natasha’s eyes glow like a small and dreamy child. Clint liked it, probably more than he liked most things, but he didn’t voice it, didn’t realize it.

“I can’t feel my toes,” Natasha shook.

“I’ll get us a cab.”

Natasha stood on the sidewalk, nearly jogging in place to warm herself up, and Clint laughed over his shoulder, asking if that was a S.H.I.E.L.D. technique to keep her from pneumonia. She flicked her middle in the air, but she was wearing mittens, which made them both laugh.

Piled into the back of the towncar, Natasha read off the crossroads of their destination, respecting Tony and his beautiful vacation home (one of many, she assumed) enough not to draw attention to it.

Snow began to fall agains just as they made it inside the front doors.

 

CLINT helped Natasha out of her coat and hung it next to his as she ran into the living room to start the fireplace up. As he slipped out of his boots and wet socks to dry out on the welcome mat, he watched her, crouched down on the hearth rug, the small of her back peeking through the space of her dark jeans and t-shirt.

“You should change,” Clint offered, going to join her. “Into something more comfortable.” He knew she hated jeans, and honestly, he was almost daring enough to think that he hated her in them as well. Especially since he’d seen her in the likes of Soffe shorts and short leather dresses and hugging leggings.

He was a gentleman, God knew he was, even on his worst days. But, on any day, a gentleman was still a man, and even he could lapse as the assassin fatale modeled her arsenal in his presence, the secret and lithe weapon that gave her a leg up in her job. Almost literally.

Now that he thought about it, he didn’t find the blonde and brown wigs, or the thick Russian accent, or the skintight uniform all that intriguing. Black Widow was a shade of her, but Tasha was the girl he’d grown to care and trust over their years of service together. Work was work, but at times they got to play, and he’d see her let her hair down. He’d even seen her dance once. Those were good times. Times he…

“I’m going to heat up some soup from last night,” she said, coming down the stairs just as the fire began to crackle firmly.

Clint turned to face her. She’d tied her hair up and pulled on a S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued sweatshirt, navy blue and custom-ripped to fall off her shoulder. The shorts were grey and hugging, the ones she practiced hand-to-hand combat in.

Christ.

Clint went to his room, the one downstairs and near the kitchen, and changed, pulling a t-shirt and basketball shorts from the suitcase that Natasha told him had magically appeared on the doorstep when they first arrived.

Stark would’ve made a good spy, or, at least a good director of spies.

Downstairs, Natasha had poured two bowls of brothy chicken noodle and set them on the coffee table, then asked him to help her push said table and couch closer to the fire.

They settled into the cushions.

“This is like an alternate universe,” Natasha said after a long quiet of whispering flames and slurping at soup.

He made a non-committal sound.

“You know, like…”

He watched her thinking to herself as she ate, eyes on the fire roaring healthily in front of them. She looked incredibly relaxed, guard down, and perhaps healthier than she had in over a month. She’d honestly worried herself sick during this job. He wondered if it was something else, but he respected her enough not to ask, not to assume that she couldn’t handle herself.

“It’s like this isn’t happening,” she said finally. “Like the world stopped and allowed us a timeout from all of the bullshit.”

“In that world, it would mean that Stark is our God, and I don’t think I like that idea.” He knew what she meant. “It is nice. You deserve it.”

The room warmed quickly, and so did their bodies, bellies filled with soup. Clint collected their empty bowls and took them to the kitchen. When he returned, Natasha had removed her sweatshirt and lifted her legs to stretch length-wise across the couch. She smiled up at him as he took her outer leg, lifting it so that he could sit. Resting the foot in his lap, he began to rub it from heel to the tip of her toes. At the small of his back, she wiggled the toes of her other foot in delight of his warmth.

“You could wear socks,” he said gently.

“How’s your head?”

“Fine. Stop asking,” he laughed. “Tell me a secret, Asszony Romanova.” He smiled, proud of his rolled r.

She grinned as well. “What kind of secret, Barton?”

“Anything.” He knew a lot already, and maybe he was relaxed enough in her presence, in this alternate universe, to ask for more. Something she’d asked of him once – more. He’d given it almost easily.

“I can’t roller blade.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Well,” she giggled, then moaned gently as he pulled and rubbed and her red-painted toes. “It’s not that I can’t. I never tried.”

He almost asked ‘why not?’, but he knew why. She’d never had much of a childhood. “I’ll teach you,” he said instead.

“Don’t mock me.”

“I wasn’t mocking you. I’m a circus kid. I’ll teach you.”

“You tell me a secret.”

His eyes trailed up her dainty ankle and her strong calf and past the rugged scar on her kneecap and finally to the curve of her thigh. Her thighs were a weapon, and goddamn…

Before he could stop himself, his fingers moved from her toes and slid along her shin, trickling his short fingernails across her skin. His eyes glanced up at her face, her confused ‘What’s going on?’ look. With her pouty red lips.

“When was the last time someone touched you like this?” The words slipped out of his mouth, and maybe he’d wanted to ask that question for ages, and maybe he regretted it a bit. But they were so thick and heavy on his tongue, dying to be spoken. Even if it meant he would say ‘Nevermind’, stumbling shyly through an apology afterwards. He had to ask.

“That’s… not a secret,” was how she replied.

His hand moved to her outer knee, gripping it carefully, stroking it with his thumb. If he just…turned his hips inward, he’d sink between her thighs with ease. “I know,” he mustered, eyes landing on her waist, where her tank top had risen a bit, showing the softness of her stomach, her pale skin. “When was the last time?” he asked again.

She stumbled over incomprehensible words.

His hand moved up, just a few inches to squeeze her thigh. He could feel the tenseness appear in her. But it wasn’t the kind that signified a trigger or bad memory. He knew her tells, her body, even if she’d only offered herself to him once, and years ago. He still knew how she shuddered, how her muscles moved, how her legs could wrap around him greedily, locking him in.

She said nothing, her breath caught in her throat.

He looked up to her, carefully, and saw the flush in her cheeks, the heat of the fire in her sweat, the flicker of the flames on her face. “Was it me, Tasha?”

“Wha-what?”

“Was it me? Was I the last person to touch you like this?”

“Clint.”

“If I was… that’s a damn shame.” Oh, how it was.

“What are you doing, Clint?” She was barely audible.

“It was me, wasn’t it? Was I the last person you let feel you, Tasha? Was I the last person to make you feel good?”

A shudder swam through her, and he could feel her toes curling anxiously behind his back, and see that her chest had stopped moving, no more rise and fall.

And he found himself turning, turning just a bit so that he was lying length-wise with her, stomach pressed dangerously close to her warmth, his forearm tucked between her ribs and the couch.

He looked at her lips, her chin, to the length of her neck. Her hair was sticking to her skin again, like it had when he woke up two days ago and watched her standing there, back to him, sweat at the small of her back, the curve of her ass teasing to reveal itself if she bent over in those shorts.

With a finger, he swiped away the locks of fire engine red hair, and watched her pulse point until he could see it pumping, pumping, pumping blood rapidly. He traced a finger down the length of her neck and she whimpered, and he was almost sure that she’d been the same way the first time.

“My secret,” he managed, his voice nearly mangled. He knew she felt him growing half hard against her thigh. He knew she could heard his blood pumping just as he heard hers. “I have been waiting for two and a half years for you to want me again. Just… one more time. So I can know I didn’t imagine it.”

She finally let a breath escape her.

“God, I love seeing you like this,” he growled, moving so that he was hovering above her face, lips near her nose.

“Like what?” she whispered.

“Relaxed. Shuddering. Weak.”

“I’m _not_ weak.”

“You know what I meant, Tasha.” His voice was pointedly angry that she’d even suggested he meant anything to impugn her strength and skill. He respected her as an assassin, as a warrior, and more so than any other man or woman he’d met. It wasn’t because she was beautiful, or because they were friends. It was because she was fucking good at her job. Being beautiful was just an added bonus, a thing that made him… well, weak.

“I didn’t want things to be… complicated,” she said, her voice shaky as he moved against her, hooking his free arm beneath her shoulder, and positioning himself so that he was finally cradled completely between her legs, and God she was warm and inviting, like an electric force was built between her thighs, made to pull him in. Just like he remembered. Thank God he hadn’t imagined it.

“Complicated,” Clint repeated, his eyes sinking over her breasts. Had he been drinking? No. They hadn’t been drinking. Not like that first time, when she’d stood in the doorway of their beach house in Belize, in that black bikini, bottle of Vodka in her hand.

It was fucking hot.

“I didn’t want… _fuck…_ I didn’t want things to change.”

“Of course they’ve changed,” he said quickly, still looking at her body panting beneath him. “But not in the way I’m sure you feared.” He heard her swallow. “I’m just a man. Even before Belize, I could get hard thinking about you.”

“Barton.”

“Believe me, Tasha, I tried not to, but sometimes…” He didn’t have to say it, because she wasn’t stupid, and hell, neither was he. He was a good-looking guy, and he was just as much of a spy as she was. He could feel her eyes wandering over him on the days when she thought he hadn’t noticed. When he was training, when he was just lying around on the couch. She’d thought of him in the same ways he’d thought of her, and had struggled in the same ways. Had told herself that it was too dangerous, that there was too much respect between them to allow a sizzle of attraction to make a home in their partnership. But she wanted him too.

If she hadn’t felt that way, he’d’ve never been allowed to walk up to her and take that bottle of Vodka away, to stroke a finger down her pulse and tell her how amazing she was, and how cute she was dancing drunkenly around the bungalow, and how he thanked God Fury set them up undercover on a beach, and how he would love to fuck her on the sand. She’d never have allowed him to do exactly as he’d wished, carrying her out onto the beach, her body hanging onto him, squeezing him, begging him. He would’ve never gained the image of her lying on the sand, the moon shedding light over her face, her body accepting him so easily. And again in the shower.

If she didn’t want him just as badly, he would’ve never ended up here again, her legs in his hands, in goddamn Budapest, in Tony Stark’s vacation home. 

“Tell me I was the last one to be inside of you, Tasha,” he whispered, breath trembling with memory. “Tell me you want that again.”

“I – Clint, I-“

“Goddammit, Tasha, tell me-“

She pulled him down before he could finish, accepting his mouth for a kiss that rivaled any that he’d had, which wasn’t very hard to do. He groaned into her, taking her velvet tongue and her moans with ease.

Her hand had already dipped to the elastic waist of his shorts and yanked them down, setting him free. He was thinking that he’d like to slow down, but the heat was telling him otherwise, the hand reacquainting with his silk skin was telling him otherwise, and her begs, her commands were telling him _right now_.

He backed away, rising to his knees, and she pouted, but knowingly (slowly) pushed her legs up and into the air, letting him take in the softness, the length.

He pulled at her shorts, and the underwear beneath them, pulling them gently from her body and tossing them away. If they were going slower, he might have made a scene of it, taking her shorts off with his teeth, ripping away her panties with a strong tug of her finger. But now he didn’t care whether she was wearing a thong or lace or red or cotton. He cared much more about the sweet cavern the material had been covering.

She lowered her legs and pressed her feet into his chest, thighs still clamped shut, hiding herself. She tiptoed down his chest until she arrived at the hem, then slipped a foot under the shirt. “Take that off,” she commanded, and he did.

“Now, show me.”

She parted her legs, planting her feet on either side of him, and his breath caught at the sight of her, dripping with her need for him, pulsating, desiring to me filled.

Okay, so… maybe he could take this part slowly.

He dipped down and got close to her cunt, already tracing a finger down the trickles of dark hair, rubbing against her, making her body buck. Without much of a warning, he slipped a finger through her, groaning as her walls clamped to him, slick and ribbed.

He gave little movement, because he was greedy, and if this was going to be the very last time he had the chance, he wanted to remember how her pussy felt while it stretched around him.

He put his mouth on her instead, breathing against her opening, suckling on her clit as it pulsated, and she was going to come like that, hands tight in his hair, hips grinding towards his mouth, her moans telling him that her body had been desperate for more than the self-made orgasms she’d been settling for since he’d last touched her.

“Come on, come on,” she whispered, pulling him up to her. “Come on.”

While he’d been busy burying his mouth in her thighs, she’d removed her shirt, and her nipples were hard enough to cast pointed shadows on the wall from the firelight.

He hooked an arm under her and lifted her so that the arm of the couch supported her shoulders. “You want to watch me, Tasha?” he asked, breathless against her mouth before sucking on her bottom lip. He pulled back and looked down the length of their bodies. Her hand was wrapped around him, and the veins down his shaft were almost threatening, hungry and delighted all the same.

Clint gave a quick thank you to S.H.I.E.L.D. for their constant diligence, with their monthly checkups and mandatory disease screenings. He couldn’t imagine feeling her with a barrier.

Still, he asked her anyway. “Do you want me to get a-“

“No, no.”

“And what about-“

“God, I’m on the pill Barton.”

Unable to stop himself, he asked “Why?”

“If you don’t fuck me, I’m going to kill you.”

He believed her. “Watch me, Tasha,” he said softly.

She let go of his length and turned her attention to where their bodies were soon to meet. And he watched her as he guided himself toward her, watched her pouty red lips split in anticipation, her eyelashes flicker when he was finally pushing, pushing gently, starting to stretch her out with small rolls of his hips.

She whimpered and her fingers found his ribcage, scratching at him.

“You okay?” he asked her, and she dug her fingers in, telling him to keep going, and thank God, because she was gushing with damp heat, and sucking him in so firmly that he didn’t think he could ever stand pulling out of her.

When he was halfway there, she moaned from somewhere deep in her chest, and raised her legs, locking her ankles at the small of his back.

She said his name.

She said it again.

“Clint.”

And he groaned, knowing what she wanted.

He buried his face in her neck and pushed inside of her completely, one long stroke, sinking himself to the hilt, and she gasped at the sharp pain and full pleasure. He made a sound that would’ve been embarrassing otherwise, because, fuck, it felt so good to be hooked into her body like this, her legs like chains around him, his dick as far as he could reach inside of her.

And he stayed like that for a long while, kissing and breathing into her neck, letting her control the very small movements, sinking her hips down into the couch and rolling back up to him, miniscule movements that stretched her tightness around him just enough, just enough to fit him like a glove.

She said his name and he snapped to her attention, meeting her eyes.

“I’m not gonna last, Tasha,” he told her with a bitten lip.

She nodded raggedly. She didn’t care.

He caught her mouth with his again, kissing her as he started rocking back and forth into her body, accepting her scratches and moans and praises in stride, pressing against her chest and winding his hips again and again because _fuck_.

He found her pleasure spot when he heard a high-pitched moan get caught in her throat, and he hit it repeatedly, repeatedly until her body stiffened under him, her legs tight as all around him.

He pulled from her mouth to look down into her dilated green eyes, and he felt a shudder shoot down his spine. “You’re so fucking gorgeous, Tash,” he managed. He hadn’t meant to say it. He didn’t know how she could pull words out of him like that. She was so goddamn alluring, all mangled and weak beneath him, breathless and begging, still powerful, even in her pleasure. “I’m going to make you come again,” he said, knowing it would take all of the determination in the world not to give in first.

“Y-yes, you are,” she moaned as he rocked into her, and she nearly shouted as he pegged against her again and again.

“Come on, Tasha. I wanna come with you. Like that… _fuck_ …like that first time.”

“Mmmh.”

“You remember that first time, Tash? When you let me-“

“Shit!”

“-fuck you until-

“Okay, okay, okay, fuck!”

“-you were screaming?”

“Yes, I’m gonna-“

She couldn’t finish her thought. Her body clamped down around him, and her back arched, and he pushed her through her orgasm, and she accepted his without mercy.

 

NATASHA blushed as she sank to her knees. He was leaned on the kitchen counter, his boxers pulled as low on his hips as they could go without revealing himself. She took a careful glance up at him, but his eyes were on the ceiling, bracing himself.

“It’ll burn for a just a second,” she said, then dabbed an antiseptic-drenched gauze against his hip, cleaning his busted stitches. His hands banged out against the counter behind him, and she laughed. “You’ve felt worse pain than that.”

“Most of it at the hands of you, Romanoff.”

She shrugged, taking the prepared needle and thread to his wound, and started stitching away at the split skin as quickly and efficiently as she could, ignoring his small weak moans.

“Good as new,” she said, standing up and letting him admire his newly packaged wound. “Don’t rip them again.”

“As if that _wasn’t_ your fault as well,” he said snidely, catching her wrist before she could move away from him. He was smiling, and then the curve of his mouth fell into a straight line. Serious again. He was dangerous in the way he could change his expressions at the drop of a dime. “Does this… have to be an alternate reality?”

Shit. “Don’t ask me to be your girlfriend, Barton.”

He rolled his eyes. “Christ, Natasha. That’s not what I meant.”

She waited, and let him pull her against him.

“We both know intimacy can put us in compromising situations. I’m not stupid. I’m just saying that…” He set his fingers at her pulse point and stroked the skin gently, and she hoped he didn’t feel her heart flutter against him. “I’m saying,” he repeated, “that if you need someone to touch you, I’m more than happy to lend a helping hand.”

“You want to be my fuck buddy, Barton?”

“I want you to let me touch you,” he repeated sternly, ignoring her joke. “Because we’re good on the field, and we’re good as friends, and I’m good in your bed. It only… makes sense.”

“Are you trying to rationalize me fucking you regularly?”

He shook his head. “I’m trying to convince you to let me do this again sooner than two years from now. I’ll be damned if Belize and Budapest aren’t joined by Bangladesh or Berlin sooner than that.” He smiled because she did. She loved looking at him smile, and seeing him trying to convince her to sleep with him again, his words careful. Because he didn’t want to hurt her, or demand anything of her, or make it seem like he didn’t adore more than the sexual aspect of her. Of course she knew that. She wouldn’t have let him touch her otherwise.

He couldn’t let her deny how convenient and inconvenient their circumstance was all the same. They rarely had breaks like this one, even if all of these moments were stolen, and she couldn’t imagine spending it any other way than wrapped around one another.

It was terribly inconvenient that their jobs made them lead lonely and dangerous lives, but convenient that they ended up as partners. With one another, the stings of lonesomeness and danger were subsided. With one another, nobody could take them down. With one another, there was always bit of warmth that kept them from getting too lonely.

So, maybe they… belonged to one another, and had for a very long time.

“I don’t expect anything from you,” he said as she stared at the curve of his muscled upper body in contemplation. He lifted her face by her chin, and goddamn he was good looking in the morning. “You know I don’t.”

“I know you don’t.”

“But… I’m just saying. Feel free to expect anything you want from me. Because I’ll always give it.”

She couldn’t dwell on how wonderful those words sounded coming off of his mouth because they were interrupted by a phone ringing.

Clint moved to the cordless set on the counter, but Natasha stopped him, tapping the counter top twice and pulling up a holographic screen.

Tony’s face appeared. “I hope I’m interrupting,” he said, face stoic, but still bleeding with humor.

“Tony Stark, Clint Barton,” she introduced, pointing at her shirtless partner. For a moment, she was glad that the man couldn’t see her bottom half, as she was only wearing her underwear. Could he know that they’d made love all night? Could he see it in their expressions?

“Sir,” Clint greeted, giving a lazy salute.

“We met. You were sleeping. And dying. Or something.” Tony waved a hand. “Unimportant. Sorry to inform you that the honeymoon is coming to an end. S.H.I.E.L.D. caught wind of your situation with Mancillo.”

“That wouldn’t have anything to do with this?” Natasha asked, grabbing the morning newspaper and waving it so he could see. Mancillo had been apprehended by the Iron Man, and his weapons were found on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier.

“I had a day off,” Tony shrugged. “And, like I said, you needed some rest. You’re looking much less haggard, Miss Romanoff.” And by that, she knew he meant she was wearing the glow of an after-fuck, just as Clint had pointed out when they woke up together. He knew. “There will be a car there this evening that will take you to a helicopter. It will take you wherever you need to go.”

He didn’t wait for a goodbye as the image disappeared.

“I can’t tell if I like him or not,” Clint said, and Natasha laughed as he pulled her into him, detailing how he’d like to spend their last day as tourists in Budapest.

She was more than willing.

 

 

 x


End file.
